Memoir is about absence, emptiness; it’s about crossing divides–of time, space, language, and that ultimate divide between the living and the dead. It’s standin...
I nodded, feeling my heart quicken at the familiar topic, but Brother’s approach was gentle, unlike the interrogative nature of others when questioning my futur...
And then there were days when the ditch was full but no one to play with. My cousins weren’t around, and my brother didn’t want anything to do with me, so I put...
My body is a series of numbers. I weigh 204, I wear a size 16. My waist is eight inches smaller than my hips, my breasts are 38B. I should probably go up to a 4...
On this night, I have to beg permission from the hospital authorities to let you leave so you can join the Seder...I don’t look up to the heavens when I am on t...
My grandparents raised peas, lettuce, and cantaloupe on a 140-acre seaside ranch since 1915, but they could not buy the land, only lease it. Unlike European imm...
As a girl coming-of-age in the late 1980’s, I was told I could go anywhere and be anything I wanted to be, but of course, no one could tell me how to do this, o...
How do we treat agricultural workers severed from their families? We crush them together in trucks. Pack them in houses containing twenty men. Fail to supply pr...
Reconciling the discordance between your perception of how you wished to be accepted and the reality of how you were viewed and treated in West Africa was a pai...
Most days, I manage to distract myself from the horror of losing my bearing and blurring the lines in the fog of forgetfulness. I carry the markers for Alzheime...
Fear is like a tattoo; it can never be washed away.
By episode 20 or 21, I started thinking of cooking in a new, sacred light. I felt a profound need to honor Mom and Grandma by finally learning to cook.
The clerk was stringy and gray. “I recommend the Jesus diet,” she offered, as we explained our goals which were, mainly, for him to outlive cancer. “You eat onl...
It is physical, the restlessness from starvation. Like an animal foraging for survival, the starving individual has heightened senses, increased activity, and a...
